I'LL GO FOR THE DOUBLE WITH MY SHARI; says NICK HANCOCK; She does come to matches - she likes the shouting.
Nick Hancock doesn't like doing things by halves - so he'll be getting married not once but TWICE this summer to his exotic Iranian girlfriend Shari Eftekhari.First, the couple will be wed in a mosque - in true Muslim style, to the delight of Shari's religious family and friends.
Next day, they'll tie the knot with a traditional white wedding in a church in his home town of Stoke-on-Trent.
Nick, 34, who makes his debut as a TV sitcom star tomorrow in Holding The Baby (ITV, 8.30pm), has been busy planning the double celebration.
"We've been running around planning them, Shari's done most of the organising because I've been filming," says the referee of They Think It's All Over, speaking for the first time about their romance.
"But I'm just going through the holiday brochures now for our honeymoon. I'm not saying where we're going, although I've noticed there's not many places you can take a caravan nowadays!".
There was just one snag about the wedding. Nick was concerned that it might interfere with the football season. So he told his bride-to-be of his worries.
THE soccer-mad star, an obsessive Stoke City fan, says Shari, 28, gracefully agreed to put the nuptials off until the end of the season.
"I suppose that's a classic example of one of my romantic gestures," he says.
"'Will you marry me, darling, but not in the football season?' was no great surprise to her, really."
Nick says Shari, whom he met at a soccer bash last year, isn't under any illusions about her future husband.
"Every time I do something romantic I have to spoil it immediately, because I get embarrassed," he says. If I give Shari flowers, I have to tell her how much they cost or that I got them free.
"I always ruin it for myself. I take her on a romantic weekend to Paris or somewhere and then say I'd only gone so I could get the duty-free.
"I don't know why I do it - I suppose it's in case any of my mates are listening, or something."
Fortunately, Shari, a promotions executive, understands Nick and wouldn't change him for the world.
"She comes to football matches with me occasionally," he says. "She likes the shouting, I think.
"When we're at home and she walks into the kitchen, I often chant: 'Who are ya! Who are ya!'.
"But I wouldn't call myself a lad. I don't really like that label."
Before he met Shari, Nick admits he was hopeless as a bachelor - and far too lacking in confidence to chat up girls.
"I couldn't spot a come-on from a girl if it hit me in the face," he says.
"My best technique at parties was to go and stand as far away as possible from the girl I fancied and then get blind drunk. Other blokes would stand as near as they could, but I'd hide behind a curtain.
"If I fancied a girl, she'd have to come up, say: 'I fancy you', put it in writing, and then follow up with a fax of confirmation.
"I wasn't successful when I was single. To be honest I was hopeless. Being single is s**t anyway.
"I've been in relationships of one sort or another most of my life. I think they call it being a serial monogamist."
In Holding The Baby, Nick's first sitcom to make it beyond the pilot stage, he plays Gordon Muir, an unlucky-in-love single father.
"Gordon is left holding the baby, or in this case his toddler son Daniel, after his wife walks out on him for a younger man," he says.
NICK spent a lot of time with the cute twins who double up to play his little screen son Daniel - three-year-old Joshua and Jacob Atherton.
He confesses that working with children made him broody - and he can't wait to start his own family.
"But not just yet, maybe in the future," he smiles. "The twins were lovely when we were working with them. My co-star Joe Duttine, who plays the brother I share a flat with, adored them, too.
"We spent ages just playing with them so they'd relax around us.
"After a while, their mum told us the boys would play this little game where they pretended they were me and Joe, which was really sweet and quite an honour."
TO HIS disgust, his screen character Gordon hates football. Nick can hardly hide his contempt.
"I'd like to think that Gordon is nothing like me and that I'm playing against type," he says.
"I disagree with everything that he says about football - and I expect I'll get stick from my mates about it."
"You can't help but sympathise with Gordon's wife. If I was married to him, I think I'd run off. There's only so much dullness a person can cope with.
"Gordon's the kind of man who would wear a belt, braces and trousers with an elastic waistband. Yuk!"
Between now and his summer double wedding, Nick is set for a hectic time filming more Room 101 - plus They Think It's All Over with sporting pals Gary Lineker and David Gower.
"When we finish filming this I start on Room 101, he says. "Two days later I also start They Think It's All Over. It's going to be very tough.
"But then I've got the wedding to look forward to - which is a nice reward at the end of all that work."
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| Publication: | The Mirror (London, England) |
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| Date: | Jan 23, 1997 |
| Words: | 910 |
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